


We Always Leave

by Winterling42



Series: Flesh and Blood and Dust [41]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Max and Epharia have a conversation





	We Always Leave

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually one of the very first pieces I wrote for this au! Over 2 years ago now, yeesh.

“Of course we left,” Epharia snapped, teeth clicking. “We always leave.” 

Max grunted, maybe in agreement, maybe not.

“ _We always leave,_ ” she growled, her eyes shining green as living things across his hooded lantern. “That’s who we are, Max. Remember.” 

He nodded, attention focused on the valve he was repairing, turning bent metal and tough rubber over in his hands. 

“Seems to me,” he said, after a long enough silence that Epharia had gone back to scanning the dunes, “we could have left them at the Plains.”

Epharia turned back to him sharply, her uneasiness with this line of thought clear in the way her fur bristled. “Max...” she said warningly, but he pressed on.

“Bike, food and water. Space for us both to ride. If that’s who we are, why didn’t we leave then?”

Epharia laid back her ears and curled her lips, but she made no sound. Max dug through the pile of tools he’d unpacked by his side, pulling out a screwdriver and tinkering in silence. The quiet fell between them, as familiar as a family friend, while Epharia thought out her answer. 

“We couldn’t carry their ghosts,” she said at last, tail thumping once against the sand. “Ours were too heavy.”

Max nodded, but for once he didn’t flinch from Glory’s flickering shape just outside the light of his lantern. “Seems to me,” he said, very quietly, “there might be a difference between _living_ , there, maybe, and _surviving_. Here.”

“Max,” Epharia said, and she crept around the fire, away from Glory, to curl up with her head in his lap. “We couldn’t stay. We _can’t_ stay. Their ghosts won’t haunt us, now. Isn’t that enough?”

He took a long time to answer, laying a hand on her sand-colored fur and rubbing at it thoughtlessly, enjoying the scruff of her rough coat along his palm. “Ought to be.” He admitted at last, staring into the tiny lantern flame, just enough light for him to work by. “It ought to be.”

 


End file.
